


The Hol(e)y Lord of the Mountain

by slire



Series: The Shadow Biosphere [3]
Category: Mushishi
Genre: Gen, Japanese Mythology & Folklore, Past Child Abuse, a sequel to S02E08: Wind Raiser
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-27
Updated: 2015-06-27
Packaged: 2018-04-06 12:54:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,870
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4222455
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/slire/pseuds/slire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ginko hears strange tales of a mill village situated in a vale. He investigates and meets an old acquaintance who's twisted his advice into something darker.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Hol(e)y Lord of the Mountain

Ginko is a little more careful than he was a year ago, and the year before that, because a wandering mushishi must be aware of human randomness also. Legend has it there are many peculiar people—mushishi, hunters or monks—who have given up human language to communicate solely with their chosen organism, it be mushi, animal or god. Legend also has it that 1. breaking the cloth strap of a get a wooden sandal is an omen of misfortune, that 2. stepping on the cloth border of a tatami mat brings bad luck, and that 3. six ri and ten chō from here there resides a vale village which survives by mills. Ginko has dealt with enough phenomena deemed paranormal or divine to not raise an eyebrow at such oddities, even if he feels a shudder coming concerning the last one.

He is exiting a ship when the sea cook tells him about the village. The man is a nervous and twitching individual who smells like over-boiled cabbage and tobacco. Being a mushishi means you have to listen, and listen, and listen. Ginko is not cynical or malevolent, just pitiless. He avoids involvement.

"I think I will find out for myself," he admits at last, "whether or not the village is haunted."  

A grin; a flash of yellow teeth. 

It takes Ginko a moment to realise that the man's grin conveys nervousness. Humans are harder to read than mushi; what they say and do don't always correlate with what they mean or what they are. For an example, all seamen are afraid of the sea. The man wishes him good luck and mumbles a prayer. Ginko takes the path north, from the sea and towards the village.  

It takes quite a few hours to reach his goal. By then the ocean is far behind. It is midday, the heat is bearable, and there are freshwater rivers for him to refill his water-skins.  The path, originally rather wide, narrows after a big meeting point; a place with many wheel trails and old moth-bitten sacs. He finds himself using the river as a guiding point. All things end up in the river at some point. The scenery is green, with pinpricks of colour. Flowers. Hydrangea is in bloom, making him wonder if the village women know how to make sweet-tea of them. That would be refreshing. True enough the mountains grow taller and taller, until they grow sharp like black daggers. The mountains are too crooked for a windy slant to appear. At the same time a riverland reveals itself; moist land, but not yet a swamp. The rivers do not run fast, however, and are useless for mills. The earth here must be wonderful for cultivation, so why the need for…? 

Mills. Great structures, advanced architecture, both of rock and hardened wood. They stand completely still in the spring air. 

Too his surprise there are lanterns on the sides of the road, but this is unlike any festivals he's encountered. The lanterns are transparent, grey, like ghost clothing—the memory of bodies now long lost to the ether. Little hooks. Rotten cotton. Threadbare lace. Are the mills' focus texture? A mix of it, perhaps. Rice fields, fine textures... It is unimportant. 

"Halt! Who goes there?" The voice belongs to a compact old little lady, holding a lit lantern up to Ginko's face. Her hut is on the edge of the village, and she stands on the porch, wrinkly but tough like a thug. 

Ginko holds his hands up in surrender, "Oi oi, easy. I'm a mushishi."

"We have no problems with mushi," the old woman states, but the hostility is gone, replaced by confusion. "Did anyone here send for you?" 

"No. I am a wandering mushishi, to be specific."

"Oh." She frowns, but then she softens. " _Oh_. I apologise for my behaviour; we rarely get any visitors out here except thieves who have heard the rumour of our riches. Not that they get very far, of course. This old granny is quite skilled with her lantern stick."

"I do not doubt it."

"Good boy."

"I apologize, but what is this village's name?"

Her smile stiffens again. "Susanoo's Village," she finally says. 

"Susanoo in the Shinto god? The god of wind?"

"Are you familiar with our belief?"

"My travels allows for new perspective, although I do not subscribe to any particular principle—except one." Upon her expectant gaze, Ginko repeats what he's said a thousand times, "Everything is only as it is."

"Hm. It is similar to our faith, which is a mishmash of religions and philosophies, really. Quite a few people have settled down here. Fear quickly rakes out those with ill intent."

The wealth does not flood the fields, but the villagers are happy. The huts are built of thick stone; odd as they appear sheltered by wind. The villagers do not gaze at him with suspicion like so many others, but with curiosity and a smile. Steam rise from pipes. No excrement or animal guts in the streets, here; clean as if gods themselves swept at night. There are even people who are overweight! A rarity in such a climate and culture. In this isolated village they seem to have everything they need and more. "You came in time for the Hour, visitor," someone yells, having accepted him as he sees the old lady accompany him.

"The Hour?" 

Children run past him and almost knocks him over. They're carrying leather bindings, chanting, "The Hour, the Hour, the Hour!" The sight of the bindings trigger him, and he swallows thickly. He follows them as they run towards an outpost with great statues lodged in the ground. They proceed to scream at their parents until the parents secure them. The latter also secure themselves and others, often to huts if not specialized platforms. They are strict and careful, but happy.

"It is something you have to witness for yourself," a villager tells him, guiding him to a secure stone pillar. After a while everything seems to be in order, and the old woman proceeds to go hut to hut to inspect their safety. Those who do not get it right gets a swift hit with her lantern stick. 

The Hour begins.

Ginko hears the whistling first. Though more of a howling: a million people whistling at the same time. His own mushi whistle would do it no justice. He cannot see because of the huts blocking his view but he thinks it comes from the mountains. One mountain in particular, in the north. "The First Whistling," someone deems it, a woman tied down beside him, smiling. He can loosen the bonds if he want to, but—

Then, from the south and the ocean, there is an answer.

Rattling; singing; howling, a blend of noise so mighty Ginko has to cover his ears. Lighter than the first but a million times stronger. He recognizes the source at once: Torikaze, wind mushi. He sees them above his head, in a greater number than he's ever seen, birdlike in shape, brittle and white like paper, but together a storm. They fly overhead, so great in number that children are lifted, laughing. Ginko thinks his face's flesh is gonna rip off his skin.

The mills run, and run, and run. Grounding whatever that needs grounding into dust.

No wonder the village is rich: they're both a lush river land with all sorts of cultivations and protected by the mountains from storms. It is not natural, Ginko knows. He has sailed on enough seas to recognise the storm as minor, one that makes landlubbers scream in fright and old salts use both hands to light their pipes. But the villagers are calm and for them, this is natural, this is controlled. Minutes pass.

As suddenly as it started, the Torikaze are gone.

A heartbeat passes.

"All thank the Holy Lord of the Mountain!" And the villagers repeat it—"Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!"—happily and fearlessly, lifting their hands and praying to the immensity. When done, they check that everything is alright. The huts are built for this kind of thing, Ginko realises, but he hasn't said a word. It is the old woman who approaches him, looking pleased. 

"This is not natural," Ginko breathes. 

The old woman smirks, a knowing in her eyes. "Everything is only as it is."

.

.

Despite Ginko paranoia, no villagers stop him from leaving. Perhaps it is to  _spite_  his paranoia. But wouldn't that be a paranoid thing to think?

(Shiroku—the extinguished village—has left deeper scars than he dares to acknowledge. The issue is that it wasn't an isolated event; it just brought up all the other ones. Forcibly, he expunges the memories from his mind.)

It is in the middle of the night when he proceeds to sneak out of the guest room they offered him. After his "not natural" comment the old lady had watched him, they all had, and a feeling akin to malevolent knowing had risen like methane from a swamp. The stars are his guide and he goes in the direction where he thoughts the First Whistling came from. Thankfully, there is a dirt-road, so he avoids falling into a river. Mushi and insects swarm around him, providing entertainment and familiarity and light. He lights his pipe. He does not need to introduce or explain himself to them. They accept him without words. The mountain is also isolated. It stands a distance from the rest, like a person dragging itself out from a crowd but still connected to them. It's also a cliff, mountain wall going almost straight up. Using his hands, he starts feeling his way across it. To his surprise he feels holes. An extreme number of them. Understanding dawns on him.

Yobiko, or Summoned Mushi.

But what are they doing so far away from the sea? He has only ever encountered it on beaches or on the low sea. The latter is a warning sign: you must run. Now. Ginko suspects it is them who have created the legend centering around the idea that "you mustn't whistle at sea". Myth is useful, disguising sacred knowledge within bedtime tales, making it survive through eons. One forgets advice—but one never forgets a story.

(Or?)

Ginko in particular recalls a sailor's story of "the Rat-Catcher", its origins uncertain, its proposed knowledge universal. It goes like this: a skilled flautist lures rats away from a village, but doesn't receive his promised reward, and so, uses his skills to lead the village's children away. In one alteration he builds a new village for the children to inhabit and him to rule. If his assumption is correct, there should be...

Yes.

Baskets, boxes, croquets, of mud and stone and gold. They are all placed systematically after size. Upon closer examination Ginko is able to distinguish an abundance of sake, previously having occupied some of the skins. Ginko grimaces both at the putrid smell and the implication: the lord of the mountain must be a heavy drinker.

Ginko lights a torch and goes in without fear. The tunnel becomes tunnels, twisting and increasing in diameter. The Yobiko curl and wiggle through holes, repelled by Ginko's pipe. In truth, they look like excrement. Fitting, many find them, as they can be responsible for the death of sickly individuals. But isn't it just nature's walk, clearing out the weed, the weak? Judging by the mushi's number (and the number of Torikaze earlier that day), the tunnels stretch into eternity, into the rock ground and the other mountains as well. Yobiko allow no room for others—but one.

"Man of the mountain," he calls, because it  **is**  a man, "I must speak with you!" Rather than addressing him politely and be faced with indifference—there is a nothing further away from understanding than admiration—Ginko wishes to receive a reaction. "You," he whispers, "must," he shouts, "answer me!" he screams. The cave is dark and Ginko finds himself listening rather than seeing. Relying on other senses than sight has proven important in many situations dealing with nature. He hears the shuffling of feet. The wind isn't blowing heavily and all the noise echoes like there's a whole society in there: hundreds of men and women, trapped. Perhaps it isn't the quiet wind, but the humming / groaning / moaning of hundreds of separate voices. But no. There is only a man.

In one of the holes, holding his hand with the torch up, Ginko spots an eye. It widens upon discovery, as Ginko knows his own do. The scenario fills him with something akin to dread.

"Show yourself."

" **No**."

Would a mushi ever utter something like it? The word that shows something has a consciousness of its own. Often it's the first thing a human child will learn to say:  _"No! No! No!"_ a mantra of  _I am alive and I have a will_. Ginko hears the rustling of ornaments and heavy robes, dragged along the floor. He lifts the torch higher, like a sword, illuminating holes above and around him in the tunnel. Some are so big that a human could squeeze through. What a way to go. He hopes Susanoo's Village does not conduct human sacrifice. Thinking about Susanoo leaves a bad taste in his mouth. Above him, the Yobiko continue to wiggle like tubes of human excrement.

"I know what you are," Ginko says. "What they are."

"Knowing will not help you in this case." It echoes around, bouncing off the walls like the man's—and it is a man, Ginko reminds himself again—footsteps, replaying the illusion of an army inside the mountain. An army of convictions, perhaps. They can both see mushi and control their fates, to some extent. "I know who you are, mushishi. It changes nothing."

Ginko swallows thickly. "It is not right, nor will it pay off, using such a power for your own merit. You have an instrument, yes? To have called the Yobiko here? To eat be eaten by the Torikaze and produce winds for the mills so the villagers can worship you like a god?" He imagines it, like the tale of the rat king, the man luring the Yobiko from their natural habitats, from the shores south for the village, to inhabit an isolated mountain not fit for their kin. To function as bait. Be born, reproduce, and die. A lord with only one thing on his mind: stifling hunger. This is why he'd never sell his own rock whistle to Adashino. He trusts the good—if not obsessive—doctor with his life, but not his things. Greed is the hunger that exits in every human. Truly, the greatest illness of all, located deep within, like the foul smell that rises if one digs in rotten earth or breaks apart a cadaver. "It is not right," Ginko repeats.

"Morals and justice and childish ideals are all wasted here. The villagers are content and so am I. What will you do? Run out into the fields and tell them? Go right ahead. They  **know**." The last word is shouted, yet the quality is brittle. "Aren't you all about living in harmony?"

He imagines a child: a young version of himself, perhaps, stubborn and unyielding and with a view of black and white. He has a hard time condemning the child.

"Breeding mushi to get power and capital is not harmony."

"Why d'you exclude humans from the biosphere?" The ecosystem he's talking about consists of two distinct components: A (Yobiko) and B (Torikaze), in which A function as producers, reproducing inside the mountain, for B to fly from the ocean through the town to the mountain and eat A. "When a wolf captures and eats a bunny, do you condemn the wolf?"

The voice comes from his left now, but when Ginko swings the torch towards it, the footsteps begin again. Circling him. The walls are thin and holey. "Our minds—if we have not lost them—allow us to make choices," Ginko replies coldly, "and to see the situation for what it is and avoid an unfavourable outcome. A double-edged sword; we have the choice to pull away and leave be or to exploit and be greedy. And make oneself into a legend, a ghost, a lord."

"Am I any less than a god of a mountain?"

The temperature drops. Ginko recalls the distinct feeling of an egg cracking in his palm and the childish horror of destruction. He says, devoid of emotion, "I once killed a god of the mountain." 

A pause.

"I am remembered. I matter. I am someone great." A slight exhale as the man says, "If I am not a lord, what am I then?"

"Lore. Legend. Myth. Whatever you prefer." Ginko does not walk further into the tunnel. Ideas bloom in his subconscious for each step but this one is the clearest:  _'Could this be me, if I had succumbed to greed?'_  "You've made something more than a decaying organism, and it is a lie."

"You don't remember me, do you?" The same breathlessness is evident—is he in bad shape? Ginko imagines a mountain inside a bigger one. His voice holds contempt. He speaks through a wide hole, cupping his hands around his mouth, and Ginko's torch allows him to see the mouth and teeth and tongue, a pink cave alive with movement, "Because you rarely remember all the people you've visited. You condemn me for being living lore yet you are more of a mythical figure that I'll ever be. The strange-looking white-haired never-changing mushishi, forever passing judgement on those who seek your help and favouring the mushi rather than your own species. An ideal of  _"everything is only as it is"_ —the exact advice I administer here in Susanoo's Village,  _my_  village. I have a community and family."

Ginko's throat is dry, "I want to see you."

"So you can pass on judgement? I'll let you do that and more... If you remember who I am. Without the titles. Without the lore. If I'm supposed to care about mushi, show me you care about humans, mushi— _shi_. I will give you a day to remember. Come back at sundown."

.

.

Ginko walks the fields, the river lands, the paths.

The villagers watch him wander and do not comment on it, nor do they seem to be upset over his trip to the mountain. It's well known as the old watchwoman had questioned him in front of everybody on whether the sake barrels were empty, and if so they'd need to refill them. They regard him as an oddity, something not to be understood, but to be respected, like holiness or mushi. They ask him superficial questions of other towns and the weather. He's not a part of their community—nor is he part of their world.

Ginko had spoken to enough people and monks to know that the Buddha argued that everything depends on everything.  _"The one contains the many and the many contain the one."_ You cannot understand anything isolated from its environment. The leaf contains the sun, the sky and the earth.

Who is their holy lord of the mountain? Who is the man behind the crown and stone? That should be his main question, but Ginko can't help to lose himself to wondering. A dream consists of him settling down in a similar village, enjoying it for a few months, only to have his gift / curse consume it whole in more or less a week. Is it a dream or a memory? The most vivid memory concerning settling down is killing the god of the mountain. The residing mushishi and mountain-keeper had told him he could never forgive him, even if Nature did. He'd felt so lost then, a small amnesic child cursed to wander, condemned by yet another adult. He'd sought to groups of travelling mushishi but his spiritual pressure was too strong. The mushi followed him wherever he went. They remained loyal and simple.

How can Ginko convince the man of his wrongs when he sympathizes so?

His feet slosh in marsh water from the trek. It is a pleasant feeling. It takes the sting out of the other bodily frailties crying in chorus that sounds like  _memento mori_. Lukewarm water gurgles between his toes when he bends and stretches them in his boots.

Adashino had once told him that you mustn't only treat the disease—you must also treat the patient. It is the good doctor's words that snaps him out of his reverie and helps him exactly  **why**. Ginko remembers. 

He recalls battering tonics—a medicinal substance—brewed from root against sea travel (seamen are a superstitious bunch); he's good with people, but good in the way that's closer to manipulation than care; that's why when near Adashino is near, the doctor does the talking. He recalls a boy onboard the ship and learning about his extravagant powers and complimenting him on them.  _("You must never whistle at night. Something bad will happen if you do.")_  He'd kept his warnings simple, hoping the ensuing mystery will scare him like it does most people in this age. However, the boy—and Ginko had forgotten he was just a boy—acted in the opposite manner, thinking that a mystery is not something to be bypassed and ignored; it is something to be explored and understood. Sometimes people with the ability to see mushi are in denial. Humans are delicate. Ginko would not pry. Lastly, he recalls that he had to pry, discovering that the boy had been mistreated enough to want to destroy his family. Crying when Ginko told him that it was up to him what choices he would make and what kind of man he would become. And finally deemed an ungrateful wench of a son—even when he called the Torikaze to save his mother.

Who is Ginko's family?  
  
He thinks of Tanyuu, of the Karibusa blood and the 4th Recorder, giving her life—and soon, her womb—to protect the world from a forbidden apocalyptic mushi, yet she expresses a profound respect and love for everything living. 

He thinks of Adashino, paranoid shithead but proud and playful and self-satisfied like a cat, a good doctor with an intense interest and care he reserves for Ginko only; an interest which quells all potential jealousy or fright.

He thinks of a myriad of faces, but the same welcoming arms, the same warm heart. Villagers who let him share their huts. Villagers who hands him free food, and and information, and embraces, bowing and telling him  _"We know what you do and we're all so grateful, you've helped a neighbour / friend / cousin / sister, thank you for staying with us – "_

 _" –_   _thank you – "_

_" – for staying – "_

_" – with us"_

.

.

"I remember." 

"So, finally," the lord of the mountain hisses, "you have come to confront the monster."  

"I have come to talk to Ibuki." Ibuki, the boy. Though memory distorts sound, he hears that Ibuki's voice has grown frailer, thinner, like an old man's. He can't be more than thirty. When it's clear he's not going to receive a response, Ginko says, "I always did find it impressive, you know. More than just a bit, too. You, learning how to call the Torikaze on your own, without a teacher, without a guardian, without a friend. What you did then was not use them—you said it yourself, they wouldn't listen if it went completely against the flock's wishes because they had their own wants and needs—but to simply urge them to do your bidding."

"Without reward," says the man on the other side, and he's not moving anymore, so Ginko can pinpoint his location.

"More often then not, life does not offer reward," Ginko replies.

"I gave myself one. Their favour."

"A lord is not a family member. In the process of trying to become a lord, you further alienate yourself. Holiness is alienation."

"You paint me a villain. Before I came here the village was starving. I'm still saving them. If that means to die that's fine." 

"You're dying."

"Yes."

"You said if I guessed correctly, I'd get to see you."

" **So be it**."

Despite the harshness, the tone is resigned.

Footsteps.

His lungs start hurting and Ginko discovers he's been holding his breath, waiting for the man to make his way through the tunnels to him. The rustling of the Yobiko increases.

And then Ibuki stands there. What he guesses is Ibuki, anyway. He's wrapped in writhing Yobiko, so great in number that they appear like a single organism merged with him, a hairy one with thick brown hair. Ginko blows the pipe's anti-mushi smoke at to make them flee. It reveals the human. Ibuki's skin is brown and cracked like a tree. His face is set in stone. A façade. His body and limbs are frail, thin, and—to Ginko's shock—full of holes. An ear is misssing. Some of his fingers are nibbled away. His left arm is gone from above the elbow. How mushi, a product of a separate biosphere, affects human biology is unknown. Meat is softer than rock, but Yobiko affect humans nevertheless. He doesn't look like a holy mountain lord. In that regard he's more of a revered follower, self-punishing, torturing himself or being tortured by others to get closer to gods. Who are Ibuki's gods? Forgiveness. Purpose. Familiarity. He had sought not only physical but also emotional presentence, in lieu of the absence he had gotten from his parents.

Ibuki awaits Ginko's judgement.

Ginko will not give him any. Blasé, he asks, "What will you do when death comes even closer?"

"Sokushinbutsu." 

Self-mummification. Ginko sucks in a breath. Being a traveller and exposed too many different cultures and sects, he's heard about sokushinbutsu in secluded Buddhistic areas, which view it not as suicide, but as an act of enlightenment and divinity. The monks would spend I: 1000 days on a diet on nuts and seeds and a toilsome exercise regime, II: 1000 days on roots, bark and a poisonous tea from the Urushi tree, making the body too foul to be eaten by bugs, and III: sealing themselves in a tomb barely larger than their body, in the lotus position, with only an air tube and a tiny bell he'd ring to show he was alive. Ginko had talked to someone who'd heard the jingle of the bell. The process is another instance of what Ginko deems human randomness. Illogical. Harmful. But he is not here to judge.

"On your own?"

The reminder of his isolation seems to break something in Ibuki. Ginko wonders if the townsfolk ever talk to him.  _Really_  talk to him. He's pressed his sadness into a tiny ball and hid it in his chest. "I... I want purpose."

Ginko lays both hands on Ibuki's shoulder—who trembles at the touch, terrified blue eyes blinking. How long has it been since he had any contact with another human being? (In truth, this applies for both of them.) "What you did was good, saving the village from starvation. But you are abusing mushi. I told you, people who abuse nature will destroy themselves." He thickens his hold on Ibuki. His frail body, his frailer mind.

"Not all destruction has to be ugly, you know," Ibuki says sadly.

"Unnecessary destruction is always ugly."

"So what should I do? Free the Yobiko? It wouldn't be too hard, I'd just wait till a day where the wind was still and would blow through the holes. But it would destroy the village. Join them as it falls to dust? D'ya think the villagers would forgive me?"

Ginko's own paranoia blooms like vine and squeezes around his heart.

He inhales.

Exhales.

"Everything is only as it is," Ginko says. "Some of them might hate you. Some of them might hate me. You are right when you said that morals and justice are wasted inside a mountain. But while strange and random, I prefer to belief that there is goodness in humanity, and an ability to co-exist with their surroundings." Tanyuu's face, Adashino's face and a myriad of anonymous smiling faces flash across Ginko's vision. "It is this belief that allows me to continue this work. It is the belief that made me certain that you'd save your mother and correct your wrongs—and that you will do it, again."

Slowly but surely, Ginko leads him outside. Ibuki won't stop shaking and he limps. Human language can only help so much. Ginko knows it's the harmony of the two elements, his humanity and nature, that controls it.

Outside there is a sunset. The colours work together to create the view. The farmers are going home for the night. Upon sighting them, the mushishi and the mountain lord, they gape at first, then raise their arms in a whole-hearted wave. What their reactions will be is uncertain.

Ibuki's last uncertainty vanishes like dew on a hot rock.

His mouth contorts in what is a smile –

Tears start running down his face, thick and leaving trails where they go.

And he cries, open mouthed and bawling.

Ginko can't help but smirk. _'How very human of him.'_


End file.
